Cottage by the Sea (59 page)

   "Well, I'm certainly not one for ghosts and family legends and all that nonsense," Luke acknowledged evenly, "but I'm actually quite fond of my eccentric cousin."

   "And as for that common parvenue," Chloe declared, ignoring Luke's aside, "she's just trying to play up to you with all her vulgar millions, but you're too blind to see it!" Chloe glanced around the sitting room. "She'd like nothing better than to be mistress of this house."

   "Well, I know
one of you would," Luke said dryly, "but fro
m what I've seen lately, I'm not at all sure it's Blythe Barton."

   "Just because her maiden name is Barton, I suppose she's got some romantic notion that she could become—" Chloe glanced at Luke sharply. "What did you just say?"

   "I said that I'm not at all sure Blythe Barton could be persuaded to be mistress of Barton Hall—unless there are a few more changes around here."

   "Such as?" Chloe demanded.

   Luke hesitated and then said quietly, "As Richard's godmother, Chloe, you'll always be a welcome guest at Barton Hall, but do promise me you won't inconvenience yourself in future by bringing me my morning tea—in bed."

   Chloe flushed the same shade of red as her royal Stuart tartan skirt. She opened her mouth as if she were about to unleash another torrent of invective against the particular object of her wrath. Then she glared at Luke and snapped, "If that's how you feel, then drive your
own
bloody son to school!"

   Next, she turned on her heel and exited the sitting room without uttering another word. A few minutes later Luke heard the sound of the Jaguar purring by. He glanced out of the bowed window at the base of the tower alcove that housed the small desk with the telephone in the sitting room and watched the petroleum-blue car disappear into the ancient column of trees that flanked the winding drive. A sizeable footlocker remained abandoned in the driveway.

   In the next instant the door hidden in the bookcase swung open without warning.

   "Daddy!" Richard chimed happily. "Mrs. Q said to tell you that lunch will be fifteen minutes late. She's set it in the dining room because Cousin Valerie called just now."

   "She did?" Luke replied, puzzled.

   "I answered the phone," Richard said proudly. "Since she was coming over anyway, I invited her to lunch and she said yes." He gazed warily at his father's furrowed brow. "I hope that was all right?"

   "That showed very good manners on your part," Luke assured him, wondering why his cousin didn't ask to speak to him on the phone, if she was inquiring about the aftermath of Richard's late-night adventure in the cave. "Did she give the reason she'd like to see me today?" he inquired of his son.

   "No… she didn't say."

   "Will Blythe be joining us for lunch?" he asked casually.

   "Mrs. Q said no," Richard reported. "No one's seen her since this morning." Richard gazed at him anxiously. "You really are going to be friends again, aren't you, Daddy?"

   Luke nodded affirmatively and hoped that he was telling his only child the truth. Then he went into the kitchen to inform Mrs. Q of another change: that Mrs. Acton-Scott would not be having the noonday meal with them.

   As soon as Valerie Kent's pint-sized Morris pulled to the back of the castle, Richard went running out to greet her.

   After the trio had consumed their lunch, topped off with Mrs. Q's velvety cream custard smothered in raspberry sauce, Valerie smiled at her cousin. "I wouldn't say no to a small brandy if you offered me one, Lucas," she announced cheerfully. The psychologist carefully folded her damask luncheon napkin, monogrammed with the Barton crest and its distinctive embroidered sheaves of wheat, and replaced it by her empty plate.

   "You? Brandy?" Luke reacted with surprise. "In the middle of the day? What would your patients say?"

   "I'm off duty," she retorted primly, pushing back her dining-room chair. "And, besides, with Dicken safe at home, I doubt I'll be called out on a search-and-rescue mission anytime soon," she added with a touch of irony. "Now, be a good host and escort me to the library." The grayhaired sixty-six-year-old turned to look affectionately at her youngest cousin. "I would very much like to have a private chat with your father, if you don't mind, dear."

   "All right," Dicken replied, casting the adults a curious look.

   As Luke poured each of them a splash of brandy into two crystal snifters, he inquired, "Now, to what do I owe this pleasant, but rather mysterious, visit?" He noticed that Valerie had quietly closed the library door.

   She accepted her glass of spirits and remained standing.

   "Cheers," she said with an enigmatic smile, "and congratulations."

   "Congratulations?" he echoed. "For what?"

   "So many things." Valerie smiled benignly.

   "Like what, for instance?" Luke asked suspiciously. Valerie's smile merely grew broader.

   "Valerie!" he said with exasperation. "Will you tell me what this riddle is all about?"

   "I can't tell you," she said judiciously. "But I can show you."

   "Then please do so," he urged with a hint of genuine impatience. "I've got legions of workmen out back whom I should be supervising. I've no time to waste."

   "I'm afraid this will take a half hour or so," she announced.

   "What will?" he demanded.

   "Please be so kind as to move that leather chair over here, next to the genealogy chart," she directed, "and sit down."

   "See here, Valerie," he said brusquely, "Dicken and I have to leave for—"

   "Odd that you should mention the word 'time.'" His elderly cousin smiled, sphinx-like. "Because, in actual fact, time has a great deal to do with what I hope to discuss with you. Will you sit down, please?" she repeated forcefully.

   Luke reluctantly surrendered to his kinswoman's iron will and took his seat. Valerie then brought a straight-backed chair from the other side of the desk and placed it opposite him. She settled her ample proportions on its wooden surface and smoothed her woolen skirt.

   "Is this a game of psychological kneesies?" Luke asked, deadpan, as he gazed across the short space that separated them.

   "Now, quiet, please!" Valerie ordered, a satisfied smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Then her expression grew serious. "If you will merely trust me, Luke, and believe that I care very deeply about you and Dicken—and if you will allow yourself to keep an open mind—I am certain that what I am about to try to convey to you could be very important to your future."

   For his part, Luke was completely mystified by her cryptic words. However, he was struck by her heartfelt sincerity.

   "You've always been a great friend, Valerie," he allowed soberly, "but I must confess, I feel a bit foolish sitting across from you like this."

   "I can understand why you would," she replied calmly. "If you'll only make an honest effort to listen to what I have to say, Luke, and to consider what I am about to show you… I think I might be of some assistance to you—and to those dearest to you."

   "Are we also speaking of Blythe?" he asked in a low voice.

   "Yes, indeed we are," she said with a nod.

   "Well, as I learned this morning… Blythe has her own demons from the past that she continues to wrestle with. I can certainly understand why she is not up to coping with mine."

   "I happen to be aware of all that," Valerie disclosed crisply.

   "She's spoken with you about… us?" he asked slowly.

   "You know perfectly well that the details of what Blythe and I have discussed within my office walls must remain completely confidential," the psychologist replied tartly.

   "She's been seeing you professionally?" Luke asked incredulously.

   "Let's just say we've had a variety of interactions over the summer," Valerie replied cautiously. "She has asked me to describe to you some unusual experiences she's had here at Barton Hall, hoping, perhaps, that you would be more prone to believe her if I could corroborate some of the—"

   "What exactly do you mean by 'unusual experiences'?" Luke interrupted. "She mentioned something to me about seeing some sort of infant floating around in your crystal ball, but I—"

   "I told Blythe, however," Valerie continued, ignoring the thrust of Luke's question, "that you were likely to be skeptical of anything I said as well… and that it would be better if she described these phenomena to you herself at… ah… some point," she amended.

   "What sort of other 'phenomena' are we talking about here, dear cuz?" Luke pressed sternly.

   "Oh… things like genetic memory… altered states of consciousness…long-term post-traumatic stress syndrome," Valerie replied, affecting nonchalance. "You know, Lucas… all that hocus-pocus claptrap I find so utterly fascinating!"

   Luke's cousin began digging inside the voluminous handbag she'd retrieved from the reception hall en route to the library after lunch. Eventually she located a tattered brown leather volume and placed it in her lap.

   "Not Reverend Kent's diary again!" he groaned, and sank back against his chair.

   "Now, hear me out!" Valerie said emphatically. "You've made it abundantly clear what you think of my investigations into certain paranormal aspects of the Barton-TrevelyanTeagues and the links to my branch of the Kents… but I'm warning you, my dear Lucas: this is serious business! For your own happiness, you must put aside your perpetual role as a Doubting Thomas for a moment and allow me to read you a few passages from this journal."

   "But, Valerie," Luke protested good-naturedly, "even you say that the good reverend's supposed forecasting of future Teague heirs left off at the end of the last century. Surely you can't make a claim that he predicted a way out of my own current emotional entanglements!"

   "Oh… but he did!" Valerie said delightedly. "In a roundabout fashion." She dug into her handbag a second time and popped a pair of reading glasses onto the end of her nose. "Look here," she declared, pointing to the diary. "In one passage written in 1794, he made an extremely interesting notation at the end of the list of names he said he saw in the shewing stone—"

   "Ah, yes… the old murky mirror where Reverend Kent claimed to see his visions of the future," Luke interrupted with veiled sarcasm.

   "Exactly!" Valerie said, beaming. "Now, just look at this!" she continued excitedly, pointing to a paragraph in the yellowed diary and handing it over for him to inspect. "'And the Children of the House of Barton shall ne'er be lost,'" she recited aloud, "'nor will they wander alone. Their path will be lit by silver candlesticks into a land of misty waters and fertile ground.'"

   Luke looked at Valerie and pronounced, "I'm afraid you've lost me."

   "Did you know that Kit Trevelyan died a suicide?" Valerie queried. Luke arched an eyebrow in surprise but remained silent. "Reverend Kent writes in his diary that he was castigated by his fellow churchmen for allowing Kit to be buried in St. Goran's churchyard. See?" she said, pointing to a paragraph at the bottom of the page. "'Despite all, I must grant poor Kit a refuge in hallowed ground, for certainly the Lord God would find me culpable in that poor soul's death. And if I am smote by my brethren, 'tis but the penance I deserve.'"

   "What does any of this have to do with silver candlesticks, or more to the point, with Blythe and me?" Luke demanded impatiently.

   "Are you aware that Blythe received a pair of silver candlesticks just today, sent from her family in Wyoming!" Valerie announced, her voice laden with her customary heightened sense of drama. "Her late grandmother Barton wanted her to have them."

   "Candlesticks!" Luke exclaimed, his patience apparently nearly exhausted. "That hardly constitutes proof of anything out of the ordinary, my dear Val. There must be millions of pairs of silver candlesticks on both sides of the Atlantic—"

   "'The Children of Barton Hall shall ne'er be lost'!" Valerie repeated excitedly, pointing again to Kent's diary. "The first Blythe Barton and Christopher Trevelyan had no legal surviving heirs! Yet look what Reverend Kent's predictions say: 'Their path shall be lit by silver candlesticks into a land of misty waters'! Blythe
must
be a direct descendant! The candlesticks, along with the unusual experiences she's been having since she arrived here, establish that fact!"

   "I think that's a bit of an overstatement, my dear Valerie. I grant you that Blythe may well be distantly related to the Cornwall Bartons, but as for 'misty waters,' may I remind you that Wyoming is about as far away from the sea as one can get in America?" Luke said wearily. "And, besides, what does any of it matter?"

   "I haven't a clue about the 'misty waters' bit," Valerie admitted reluctantly. "However, doesn't it strike you as significant that the candlesticks from the Barton family in America just happened to arrive
today,
to 'light the way' for the two of you!" she concluded, as if dispensing a piece of airtight logic. "The Bartons of America have come home after all these years! You two are meant to—"

   "Have you seen these candlesticks yourself?" Luke intervened quietly.

   "No… ah… they were still in their wrappings. Blythe was going to wait to open them when she returned to Painter's Cottage after doing some errands in the village, but, really, Luke—"